The other day, a buddy of mine was wearing a tee-shirt commemorating the Baltimore Ravens’ Superbowl championship two years ago. The back of the shirt had their schedule from that season, and said if they won or lost that game. However, instead of spelling out the entire months (which would have taken up too much space for the tee-shirt), the months were abbreviated to Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec., and Jan.
I looked at “Sept.” and couldn’t help but think of my French class, in which I learned that “sept” means “seven.” This got me thinking that perhaps the names of the months were based upon their number. However, I quickly dismissed this idea when I remembered that September is the ninth month.
Still, I thought about the other months. October: “oct-” is a prefix meaning eight, right? And “nov?” Like nueve in Spanish or nouveau in French, meaning nine? Dec? Like a decathalon?
I doubt it’s coincidence. But why do only these months have prefixes that mean numbers? Moreover, why don’t the numbers coincide with the month’s actual number?
I think, before the current 12-month calendar we have now, it was a 10 month calendar, and July and August were added in Roman times - after Julius and Augustus… emperors of Rome.
Therefore, Sept was 7th month Oct. was 8th month… Nov… 9th… , … Dec., 10th…
Yes, they were numbers from a 10-month calendar in an early Roman calendar, and you have the correct interpretation. Two months were added later (July and August, I believe) to tune up the calendar. I’m sure someone will drop by with a detailed history of the calendar, which I’ve seen on this board in the past.
Not quite. The start of the year in Roman Times was March.
So if March ==1, September ==7, October ==8 etc.
As for July and August. they used to be called something like
Quintillius (5) and Sextillius (6); then they were changed to honor Julius and Augustus Caesar. I forget when it was decided to move the start of the year to January.
Simple - the original Roman calendar had only ten months and was 304 days long. It started in March and went through to December. There were no dates in the winter, as there was no agricultural work to be done. It also included the months of Quinctilis (Five) and Sextilis (six) which would later be renamed in honour of Julius Caesar and Augustus.
At some point February and January were added (by legend it was the second king of Rome, Numa Pompilus) although the year was still counted from March, ensuring that December was still month 10.
In 153 BC the start of the year was moved to January from March, and ever since the names of the months have been out of sync.